Americans Have Few Emergency Savings but Are Comfortable with It

Everyone must put aside some emergency savings, in case something unexpected arises. However, most Americans don’t actually put aside such savings, and they have no problem with it. A recent report reviewed the financial situation of Americans, as well as their attitude about it. This way, they revealed they don’t have too much emergency money, but they don’t worry about it too much.

Many Americans have no emergency savings

The financial website Bankrate.com was curious what Americans would do if they faced an unexpected situation. Therefore, they questioned them about their economical means to deal with it and got some interesting results. It turns out one in five people don’t have any emergency savings, but are far from being worried about it.

These feelings of comfort are actually quite common among people. For instance, 47 percent of all the participants had some emergency savings. However, these would be enough to cover only three months’ worth of expenses or even less. Even so, they declared themselves really content with the situation.

People aren’t worried about their few monetary resources

However, financial analysts aren’t too happy about this situation. People might have to face unexpected expenses at any given moment. Judging from the results, they are far from capable of dealing with these expenses, so the feelings of content shouldn’t be there.

Analysts explained where these feelings come from. It turns out Americans are used to having no emergency savings at all. Also, they regard this situation as normal, especially since it’s so widespread. If most people have no emergency savings, they see no reason why they should feel odd.

Also, the feelings might also come from a situation called optimism bias. Most people find themselves less likely than others to deal with an unpleasant situation. They think the chances that anything bad might happen to them are small, but the situation is quite different.